Quick Summary:

Where were you when you heard the news? It’s a question people have been asking and answering all last week on the 50th anniversary of JFK’s death...Something was taken from us that day, and whether that “something” was based on myth or reality, it seems we’ve spent the better part of 50 years trying to get back what was lost.

I called my folks on Friday, to ask about their experiences 50 years ago, and to check my memories against their own. I learned several things in the phone call that I didn’t know or hadn’t remembered. One of them was this….

The Montana weather was bitterly cold that weekend—too cold to play outside—and with nothing but news coverage on every channel, my brother and I needed something to do, so we used the time to build a little stable, a home to house Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus and our other crèche figurines.

Thinking of those two events now, juxtaposed—the death of our president and the crude stable in which Christ was born—a line from the hymn WHAT CHILD IS THIS comes to mind...
Nails, spear shall pierce him through the cross be borne for me, for you
Hail, hail the Word made flesh, the babe, the son of Mary!

This Child, born of Mary, who would spend his life revealing the ALTENDER side of an ALMIGHTY God, is destined for the cross, the words say. And today, on the feast of Christ the King, that is where Luke’s takes us.